Skied 3 fantastic runs in Copper Bowl today with Mike Brown.

At the top of one of many highpoints around Copper Bowl

Parked at Castle Junction on the 93S and followed the Altrude Creek (Twin Lakes) Trail for about 6km before leaving it at about 1950m. We skinned up the forest heading south east to the ridge col at 2400m and then went west to the high point at 2500m. Our first run was down an open south aspect low angle slope leading into a drainage ending just below 2300m. We skinned back up and climbed the ridge near Copper Pass to 2400m and skied another solar slope. Using the same uptrack we went back up and skied down the west aspect into the creek drainage using steep tree laneways. We followed the drainage back to the main creek in low but mostly supportive snow. Once back at the main creek we attempted to follow it before giving up and skinning to the summer trail. We got to the summer trail at 5pm (sunset) and we skinned out on it (low snow, many rocks) a good distance before it got dark. I realized a short time before this that I forgot to pack the headlamp so I skinned out the rest of the way with my cell phone as a light.

Amazing snow today!

It was a long day (about 11 hours) but the snow in Copper Bowl was worth the bushwhacking and skin out in the dark. I’d say right now you’d want to be skiing above 2200m on solar aspects in this area (maybe 2100m depending where you go). The snow depths were in the 50cm range on average in this elevation band but the downhill skiing support makes it feel deeper. Access up is mostly good, we did a little bushwhacking between 1950m and 2150m when off the trail. The trail has low snow but again it’s a summer trail so skinning uphill is fine. Exiting is a different story. Usually I ski down the main creek alongside the summer trail to exit the area but there just isn’t enough snow to cover the deadfall or alders. Skinning back down the summer trail was sporty but I’d guess a lot less sporty then trying to ski down. We found some weak solar and temp crusts in the area but nothing I was concerned about. The north face runs are thin and it will take a bit before they are in.

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